


Night of Fire - Monica

by thoseindarkness



Series: Gotham Short (Night of Fire) [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 09:34:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12296400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoseindarkness/pseuds/thoseindarkness
Summary: NOT RELATED TO THE "GOTHAM" SERIES ON NBCGotham is a strange place to live. Dangerous. Violent. Corrupt. Filled with colorful villains and dark heroes. Why would anyone live there? Well, why don't you ask them? Night of Fire tells the story of what happens to ordinary people when extraordinary things happen in Gotham.





	Night of Fire - Monica

_I was born in Gotham Mercy General. I went to Basinger Elementary on the Upper West Side. I was at Novick Middle for a year before my family moved to The East End and I transferred to Carmine Middle. I went to Middletown South High School. I’m at Gotham University now. If my luck holds out, I’ll be buried in Riverside Cemetery. I know it’s not as ritzy as Gotham Cemetery, but it’s where my grandparents were buried and I’d rather be close to them._

_To say that Gotham is my home is an understatement. I knew so many kids growing up who lost their parents. I got lucky. Both of mine are still alive, and together, and completely sane. It’s possible people. Gotham doesn’t ruin everything. I promise you that. Most of the kids I grew up with are gone. None of my friends from high school stayed in Gotham. They all got as far away as they could. I was the odd one for never wanting to. I never really knew how to explain it._

_I guess that’s why I chose Sociocultural Anthropology. Or rather it chose me. Gotham is a fascinating subject. How did it evolve to become what it is? How do its people make it what it is? How does it make its people what they are in turn? So many questions. So many stories. So many people. I love this city. Especially at night. People think I’m nuts for liking the graveyard shift, but you have to understand the people who live in Gotham during the day are the same people who live in every city during the day._

_She comes alive at night in the best way. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the stories. All the crazies come out at night. It’s not entirely true... I said entirely. Either way, the real work starts when the sun goes down._

***

“Hey Monica. It’s break time.” Zeke called form the kitchen.

“I got two out front.” Monica called back before smiling at her customer. “That’s two Choco Chunks, a Kitchen Sink, and a Nutty Buddy. Buy one more and you get the sixth for free.”

The two women in front of the register deliberated. The one with the neon green dreadlocks nodded a lot. The one in the space themed yoga pats swayed side to side.

“Alright, add a Birthday Cake and…” Dreadlocks hesitated.

“And a Triple Chocolate Sin.” Space pants finished.

“Any drinks with that?” Monica asked, her fingers tapping the tablet interface on the register.

“Skim milk for me.” Space pants said.

“Chocolate milk.” Dreadlocks said.

“So that’s a Half Box, a single Skim and a Single Choc Milk. Anything else ladies?” They shook their heads. “Your total comes out to sixteen oh three. Do you have our app?”

A hand tapped Monica’s shoulder. “I got this.” Zeke said. “Take fifteen.” He smiled brightly. “Good evening ladies. Your total…”

Monica didn’t need to hear the rest. She made a bee line for her locker. As she passed through the kitchen of Nocturnal Bakery[1] the smells of fresh pastries and breads filled her nostrils, making her stomach clench. She got one free Midnight Box – which included a sandwich, a non-specialty pastry and a drink – for every shift of at least six hours she worked. She usually held out for breakfast, but she’d skipped dinner and was seriously hungry.

_“Self-control Monica.”_ She thought, slamming her locker shut and taking the spiral staircase up to the roof.

The roof wasn’t better. If possible, the smell was stronger there. She stood on the corner and stared down at Gotham University. The school owned many of the buildings up and down University St, including the group of stores between tenth and twelfth on the east side. These were used by culinary students for pop-ups, but no GU pop up was more famous than Nocturnal. The bakery that opened after dinner and closed after breakfast. Catering to the late night munchy runs of college students at GU, Gotham Community’s Midtown Campus, and the stoners who were stupid enough to hang out in Robinson Park after dark. It was a gold mine. It was also a study in human behavior.

She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and whiled away her break typing notes into her phone. She normally took her break at one, but they’d been slammed. It was almost one thirty when the ground shook slightly beneath her. In a panic, she turned back to the staircase only to be caught slack jawed by a fireball taller than the Wayne Enterprises building rising from the direction of Robbinsville. She was so shocked that she didn’t process the real brunt of the blast until she was on her back. That’s when the sound arrived. The gut wrenching sound of rending metal under explosive force.

Live in Gotham long enough, you learn to identify that sound. She lay flat on her back and waited for the shock to subside. The night sky was a ruddy color. Pillars of smoke came up in dark waves from the far side of Midtown. If the fire was across the Sprang they’d be safe, but if it was in Coventry or the Upper East Side she’d have to evacuate. The door to the roof flew open and Julia, the baker, was rushing toward her.

_“Madre de Dios.”_ [2] She said, following Monica’s eye. “You okay mamita?”

“I’m fine.” She stood.

Zeke was on the roof a moment later. “Not today. It’s my anniversary bro. Couldn’t you people wait twenty-four hours to blow the city up? C’mon!”

_“First world problems.”_ Monica thought as she opened the police scanner app on her phone and waited for a signal. As soon as it connected it began translating the traffic and deconstructing ten codes. She kept it set on silent mode. Transcribe to text.

“There’s been an explosion at the docks.” She said. “Police, fire and rescue heading to scene. Criminal pursuit north into Crime Alley. Possible accomplices.”

“Does it say anything about an evacuation?” Zeke asked.

Julia smacked him in the back of the head. _“No seas come mierda._ [3] It’s a police scanner. You want to know if there’s an evacuation you have to check ES.”

“I got it Jules.” Monica switched to the GCPD Emergency Services app. “There’s a mandatory evacuation going out for The Bowery and Robbinsville east of Argyle. They’re recommending ferries to prevent a bottle neck. Elective evacuations on the Upper East Side east of Middle and Olympia. Holy crap, everything north of Eleventh. They’re opening seven shelters. Five on the north island. Two Midtown. Updates every quarter of an hour.”

_“Coño!”_ [5] Julia swore. “What you wanna do boss?” She asked Zeke.

“Rules are rules. We’re not in the evacuation zone. We get back to work.” He shrugged.

***

_Emergencies have an unusual effect on Gotham. Half the people here ignore them. We’ve all become accustomed to it. The way people in other cities check the weather and the traffic before they leave their homes in the morning, we check the emergency alert systems to find out what might have screwed up rush hour traffic patterns overnight. The explosion on the docks that night created what I like to call The Voyeur Effect._

_Studies show that one in seventeen Gothamites is a cape chaser. Meaning they have at least some of the paraphernalia necessary to photograph or record a costumed vigilante. That night if you tuned into any of the websites that live stream rooftop surveillance you’d find all the fish eyes in this city were turned to that fire. You would also see the people of Gotham standing on their rooftops in their jammies watching the action. Simultaneously, the twenty-four-hour news cycle was cataloguing the event blow by blow from as close as emergency personnel would let them get._

_When the Twin Towers fell in New York City people didn’t go on their roofs, roast marshmallows and watch the action like it was Monday Night Football. They did in Gotham. Yeah, I went there. Yeah, we’re that desensitized. You may think it’s sick. I just think it’s science. The science of human behavior as it is allowable within cultural norms._

_Bakery sales spiked that night. People came in, bought cookies larger than your face, then they went home and ate them on their roofs. Parking garages all along the waterfront were full within an hour of the blast. I read a news report about a week later that forty-seven insurance claims were filed for heat damage to vehicles that were parked across the river. Vehicles belonging to people who had no business being there at three in the morning._

_For weeks there was extra traffic on conspiracy theory websites, Robin forums, cape chaser BBSes. Even after the news reports. Even after the CIA stepped in. No one wanted to believe the official statements. Everyone wants to believe there’s something more sinister under the surface in Gotham. I think that’s why so many people believe the worst of this place. We perpetuate the stereotype, but why?_

_So many questions._

***

Time is a funny thing when working during a busy Gotham City emergency. The added foot traffic at the shop kept Monica from noticing the hour. It felt like it flew by faster than she realized, but by the time she closed her locker at six oh three it felt like days since she’d seen the blast.

“Jules, would you make me Midnight Box?” Monica asked, leaning onto the counter to check her phone. 

_“Con huevitos?”_ [5]

“Yes please.” She scrolled through her text. Everyone and their mother had called or texted to find out if she was okay. She read through before responding. The second to last one made her smile. “Hey Jules, make that two please. I’m meeting a friend.”

Twenty minutes later Monica was practicing the time-honored Gotham tradition of roof hopping. She was of the school of thought that you built bridges to cross larger gaps. Especially when transporting a thirty-four ounce styrofoam container of freshly brewed coffee. Some people like to jump it. Then again, some people unintentionally contributed to the suicide statistics.

Monica had already built a little network of bridges and walkways to get her the four blocks south to the Museum of Natural History. In one year, she’d made the journey seven times. This was her eighth. Eight text messages. Eight requests. Eight rooftop deliveries. He always seemed to know when she was working. At least, he’d never texted her when she wasn’t.

She settled herself on the roof around six forty and waited. It was the first chance she’d gotten to take a look at the fires. News reports said they were mostly contained by four forty-seven. An illegal shipment of Semtex was detained on the water. The explosion occurred on board the ship and only affected the docks and nearby buildings but didn’t spread past Grover Drive into the city. There were no official reports yet of injured or deceased. Monica intended to be asleep by the time those reports were released.

“You’re a lifesaver!” The voice behind her said. She looked back to see Red Robin standing a few feet back. He was covered in soot. Even through the mask she could see he was exhausted. She held up the coffee and smiled.

“I could kiss you.” He said, slumping down next to her.

“Please don’t.” She held a hand out. “You smell like a gas fire.”

“And I have the wrong equipment.” He said, greedily pulling the lid off the coffee to breath in the fumes. “Oh, blessed elixir of life.”

“And that.” She handed him his breakfast box. Bacon, egg and cheese sandwich. Cherry Danish. Extra bran muffin. Then offered the little baggy with the cream and sugar packets.

“Thank you. God I’m starving.”

She remembered then that she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. The smell of breakfast became overwhelming. She ate her egg and cheese and watched as he meticulously added cream and sugar to his coffee. Alternating between a cream, a sugar. Stir. Another cream, another sugar. Stir. He did this four times. Finished with one extra cream. Stirred. Took his first sip.

“I promise it’s not a compulsion. It just tastes better this way.” He said without looking at her.

“It’s your coffee. I was just observing.” She said with a smile. Normally, she wouldn’t pry, wouldn’t ask about his nightly activities. She saw it as bad form, but tonight was big, and he was obviously there. “I’m assuming you all made it out okay or else you wouldn’t be here having breakfast with a stranger.”

Red Robin frowned. “Yeah. _We_ did. Not everyone though.” He sighed. “Food first. Then I need you to do something for me. Something important.”

“Um. Okay.” Since that night a year ago when Red Robin happened across the would-be victim of a mugging, he’d never asked her for anything more than breakfast. How he’d recognized her. Why he’d asked her instead of any of the other employees. She never knew. She never asked.

They ate in silence, which was unusual. He liked to ask her about her school work. About her theories. About the observations she’d made. She’d showed him the notes she kept on her phone. Explained how she took them home. Catalogued them meticulously. Cross referenced them with known cultural phenomenon and behaviors. There was no idle chatter today.

When he finished eating he set his box down and drank his coffee. His eyes fixed on the horizon as the sun rose over Robinson Park. His shoulders seemed to slump with the weight of the years. She’d always guessed that he was about her age. Maybe younger. Which was a frightening thought. That morning he seemed ancient. Nerves ran though her. She set her breakfast box aside, cranberry scone untouched.

“I’m ready.” She said.

He didn’t move as he spoke, solid as the stone guardians that dotted the skyline. “Get the voice recorder on your phone. I want you to take this down for your notes.” His voice was low and even. Somewhere between tired and determined.

Monica did as she was asked. She started the recording. Gave the date. The time. Then she paused.

“Can I…” She stuttered. “I mean you…”

“This is Red Robin. I’m giving this statement to Monica Villanueva in confidence for her research.” He said.

“Right.” She set the phone down between them. “What do you need?”

“Tonight, there was an explosion at the Bowery Dockyard East. As an anthropology student I’m sure you made a number of observations about the way people behaved tonight. Can you tell me what you saw?”

Monica gave her thoughts and theories on why people reacted the way they did. When she was finished Red Robin nodded.

“I’ve seen it too. The carelessness with which we, the citizens of Gotham, treat this kind of loss of life. It’s scary when you think about it. It could happen to any of us at any time. It’s no secret I’m just a man under here. Flesh and blood. When I walk down the street I could be anyone. I could get caught up in it same as you.”

He sighed. It was more than heavy. It was like the air in his lungs was being pushed out of him by force. Like it was hard to hold it in.

“I could have died today. I didn’t because I have training, experience, equipment. In a way, I’m just as desensitized the violence as everyone else in this city. Maybe more so because I see it up close and personal every night. But I saw something else tonight. We talk about it after situations like this, but it always gets swept away in the media torrent. We forget too quickly. Fixate on the bad. On the death. On the cover-ups and conspiracies.”

He took a deep, labored breath, straightened his back and smiled.

“There’s more to Gotham than that. I saw men and women cross the perimeter line and pick up fire hoses. I saw teenagers fill coolers with water and sports drinks and start handing them out to emergency personnel. I saw off duty nurses and doctors in their PJs and house slippers administering first aid. People were emptying out their medicine cabinets. They were bringing fire extinguishers from their homes and keeping the perimeter clear.”

He turned to look at her.

“In Robbinsville people were loading up their personal boats with friends, neighbors, their kids’ classmates and getting them out of the evacuation zone. Public school bus drivers showed up hours early for their shifts to shuttle people out of The Bowery. Off duty officers coordinated evacuations in their neighborhoods. This is what we forget every time. The people in Gotham rise up. Sure, some of them shut their doors, close their eyes and keep to themselves, but plenty more don’t. Maybe there were people in the Upper East Side, in Coventry, and Newton throwing burning parties on their roofs, but there were people on the ground floor giving up their time, putting themselves at risk to help others.”

Red Robin shrunk in on himself again.

“Just remember that, would you? When you’re writing your thesis and your dissertation. I don’t want that to be a footnote because the news forgets about it too quickly. I want you to know that we see it. That it’s real and far more important than some asshole twelve miles away who couldn’t get into the emergency zone if he tried.”

“I will.” Monica said.

“Turn it off now please.” He whispered.

Monica ended the recording. She showed him the screen. He nodded.

“I was lucky tonight. The only reason none of us are dead is because we weren’t on the ship when it blew.” Instinctively Monica knew ‘us’ meant the bats. “It was pure dumb luck. I was in the right place at the right time. Then I look at all the people who don’t have what I have. Training. Experience. Expensive toys. They go in there completely unguarded but I’m a hero and they’re forgotten. Pure dumb luck. I was in the right place at the right time. I impressed the right vigilante and here I am.”

“When I was deciding my major I _really_ thought I was going to study Symbolic Anthropology. Gotham is a city of symbols. The Lady of Gotham who stands at the threshold of Blackgate and offers blind justice. The gargoyles and grotesques that litter our skyline. The Court of Owls nursery rhyme. The Batman and his giant signal in the sky. I wanted to understand how our symbols help us understand our society. I chose a broader approach, but it’s still an area of interest.”

She put a hand on his back. Could feel the soot and grease under her fingers and beneath that a heart beating. He was just a man, but he was also more than that.

“You’re a symbol Red Robin and people need those. Police officers wear badges. Judges wear robes. You wear a mask. The symbol of heroes. Maybe you’ve heard this before. Did Batman’s presence make the city worse or was he a response to a problem that was already out of control? I pose a different question. If you and your team hadn’t been out there tonight, would those people still have gotten out of their beds, or does seeing you make them braver? We know you’re just a man, but you’re a man who stands against monsters. If you can, we can too.”

Red Robin smiled.

***

_I saw Red Robin twice more after that. My last delivery was my last day on the job. Again, don’t ask me how he knew, he just did. I texted that number one final time. When I turned in my thesis. I left a copy for him on the roof of the Museum. He sent it back with a note saying he loved it and he couldn’t wait to read my dissertation. I didn’t have to send him that. Those are published online through the University. He made sure I knew he’d read it._

_I’m still at Gotham University. In a sense, I’m still a student though my job title is Professor and there are two letters in front of my name. Or three letters after it. Whichever you prefer. I got a number of scholarship to schools all over the country, but I never left Gotham. Why would I?_

_You may see it as ugly. Dirty. Crime ridden. Crooked. I see it is as beautiful. Challenging. Rejuvenating. Transformative. It is a place constantly in flux. Its people are complicated. Nearly unknowable, but I try. I will always be a student of this great city. Always be open to the powerful lessons it can teach. Good and bad. Harsh and kind. Wonderful and terrible._

_To an oyster a grain of sand is an irritant. To a person a grain of sand in an oyster is a pearl waiting to happen. It’s all about how you see it._

_If Gotham is a grain of sand, who are you?_

**Author's Note:**

>  **[1] Nocturnal Bakery**  
>  In Miami, FL is a place called Night Owl Cookie Co (http://www.nightowlcookieco.com/) down the street from Florida International University. They open at 7pm, close at 2am and deliver in a 10 mile radius. The first time I heard about this amazing place I immediately thought of Gotham. They would have a place like this.
> 
> **[2] “Madre de Dios.” | Literal translation: “Mother of God.”**  
>  As the translation implies, it is an expression of shock, disbelief and/or surprise.
> 
> **[3] “No seas come mierda.” | Literal translation: “Don’t be a shit-eater.”**  
>  In Spanish ‘come mierda’ (sometimes written as a single word) loosely translates to stupid/moron. Thing about it. You can’t be very smart if you eat shit. As a side note, sometimes people will say that they are ‘comiendo mierda’ or going to ‘comer mierda’ which means ‘doing nothing.’
> 
> Takeaway:  
> \- If someone says **you’re** ‘eating shit’ they’re implying you’re stupid.  
>  \- If someone says **they’re** ‘eating shit’ it’s means they’re not doing much.
> 
> The joys of language.
> 
> **[4] “Coño!” | Literal translation: Slang term for pussy/cunt. From the Latin _cunnus_. Can you tell I’m a language nerd?**  
>  I know, when I use Spanish I should put the upside-down exclamation point in front. I’m lazy. Cubans use this wonderfully derogatory term with a similar versatility as English speakers use fuck. In this context, it’s an expression of surprise. This line would be “Fuck!” or “Holy Shit!” if I’d written it in English.
> 
> **[5] “Con huevitos?” | Literal translation: “With eggs?”**  
>  Eggs is written with the diminutive suffix - _ito_.


End file.
